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Google Analytics (GA4)

Set up Google Analytics (GA4) with HIPAA compliance for healthcare, offering secure patient insights while maintaining data privacy.

Overview

Ours Privacy's Google Analytics (GA4) integration automatically tracks standard events (such as page views and form submissions) and custom events, all without the need for custom code. We've heard clients say the integration works so well they can hardly tell a difference after switching over.

At its core, the Ours Privacy Google Analytics integration allows you to redact PHI before data is sent to Google. You can modify IP addresses, remove email addresses, and curtail the amount of data shared from URLs before sending data over.

What makes Ours Privacy unique is that we have modifiers that allow you to use synthetic data instead of just redacting data. For example, we utilize a set of static IP addresses that geolocate to the same state, county, or region as your users. This approach allows for accurate geographic reporting while protecting user privacy.

Privacy Features

Ours Privacy ensures that all data sent to Google Analytics remains compliant with privacy regulations, including HIPAA. Key privacy features include:

  • IP Redaction: User IP addresses are redacted and replaced with an IP address from the same geographical region, preserving location accuracy without exposing personal information.
  • Server Proxying: All events are proxied through Ours Privacy servers, preventing Google Analytics from installing cookies on client browsers or accessing user IP addresses.

Setup and Configuration

Adding Google Analytics as a Destination

To add a destination:

  1. Navigate to the Destinations page in your Ours Privacy platform.
  2. Click Add destination and select Google Analytics as the destination type.

Finding Your Measurement ID

  1. Go to Settings > Data streams > Open your data stream.
  2. Copy the Measurement ID (e.g., G-B37DJMM3H3).

Setting Global Properties

You can set global event properties and user properties to be included with every event sent to GA4. This is similar to GA4's initialization, where you can define properties added to every event or user properties included with the first event in a session.

To set global properties, include them in your initialization call:

ours('init', '{{token}}', {
  default_event_properties: {
    // These properties will be added to every event
    environment: 'production',
    app_version: '1.0.0'
  },
  default_user_custom_properties: {
    // These user properties will be included in the first event of each session
    // They will be visible at: visitor.custom_properties.user_type and visitor.custom_properties.subscription_tier
    user_type: 'premium',
    subscription_tier: 'enterprise'
  }
});

The same configuration is available in GTM through the Ours Privacy tag configuration.

By default, Ours Privacy will:

  1. Include the custom_properties on the visitor for each event.
  2. Include the event properties on each event.

You will need to modify your GA4 mappers to send user properties only on page_view. No modifications are necessary to include event properties on every event, as this is the default behavior.

Event Tracking

Standard Google Analytics Events

Also commonly referred to as "Enhanced Measurement Events"

The Ours Privacy GA4 integration automatically tracks enhanced measurement events such as page_view and scroll by default. You do not need to re-instrument these events. To learn more about all of these events, refer to the Google Analytics Enhanced Measurement documentation.

These events will show up in your Ours Privacy Recent Events dashboard. In general, they look the same as any other event you would track on the platform.

Event Property Limitations

When sending events to GA4, please note the following limitations:

  • Each event can have a maximum of 20 event properties.
  • Each event property value must be fewer than 1,000 characters.

Custom and Recommended Events

To track custom events or recommended GA4 events, follow these steps:

  1. Allow the Event: Add the event name to your Event Allowlist in the Ours Privacy dashboard.
  2. Track the Event: Use the ours('track', 'EventName') function to send the event.
  3. Optionally Rename Event: Use the Ours Privacy renaming function to rename and obfuscate your events in GA4.

Note: Google Analytics limits event names to 40 characters. Event names longer than 40 characters will be truncated in Google Analytics.

Note: Events such as page_view and scroll are treated specially by Google Analytics. Renaming these events may impact your reporting.

Tracking GA4 Recommended Events

GA4 provides a set of recommended events that are reported differently, such as add_payment_info, purchase, and tutorial_complete.

To send these events:

  1. Allow the recommended event name for your GA4 destination.
  2. Track the event through Ours Privacy with any required event properties via the Web SDK, Google Tag Manager, or any other source.

See GA4's recommended events here.

Example

Using Google Tag Manager (GTM):

Using the JavaScript SDK:

ours("track", "add_payment_info", {
  currency: "USD",
  value: 10.5,
  coupon: "test 123",
});

Consent and Google Analytics

If you are implementing consent, you will frequently want to refire events that happen on page load after consent status changes.

Typically, this entails refiring the page_view event that is automatically tracked by the Ours Privacy Web SDK.

If you are refiring a page_view event and have Google Analytics enabled, you should likely define the following event_properties on that event so that Google Analytics properly counts a new session and/or new first visit.

Custom Event Properties For Google Analytics page_view Events

  • is_first_visit: Expects 0 or 1 to flag if this is the first visit for a user
  • is_new_session: Expects 0 or 1 to flag if the session is new
  • is_engaged_session: Expects 0 or 1 to flag if the session is engaged

Monitoring and Debugging

Debug View and Realtime Reports

Ours Privacy supports both the Realtime report and DebugView in Google Analytics 4.

You should see events populate in the Realtime report. If you have just enabled your Google Analytics destination, please allow 15–30 minutes for the Realtime report to become active.

To access DebugView, you can either use GTM preview mode (click Preview and launch debug mode in GTM) or append ?ours_debug_mode=true to your URL's query parameters.

Example of Google Analytics debug view:

Troubleshooting

  1. Remove All Universal Analytics (UA) Scripts

    Universal Analytics (UA) was deprecated in July 2023. Please ensure all UA scripts are removed before installing Ours Privacy.

  2. Remove GA4 Tracking for the Account Connect via Ours Privacy

    Since Ours Privacy automatically tracks page views and other events, you must remove any existing GA4 tracking scripts for the specific account connected to Ours Privacy to prevent duplicate event counts.

  3. Consider Removing Other GA4 Accounts

    If you have multiple GA4 accounts on the same page, we recommend removing them as well. This reduces the chance of conflicts and increase the compliance of your website.

Updated 7 days ago